No one is quite sure how the town got its name, though Westwego was the location from which the railroad was compensated by the State to build a railroad to the west. Folklore holds that as travelers departed the station they heard the conductor yell “west we go”. A railroad engineer, G. W. R. Bayley, first publicized the name in 1873 when he wrote, “The construction of the railroad west of New Orleans was commenced at Westwego, opposite the Western boundary of the city (New Orleans), in the latter part of May 1870.”